10 Ways to Make Your Wedding Guests Feel Welcome

Welcome to the next installment in Our DIY Wedding series! To start at the beginning, click here.

When Mark and I were planning our wedding back in 2009, one of the things we were most excited about (besides getting hitched, of course), was the fact that all of our nearest and dearest would be gathered together in the same place at the same time.

That. felt. epic.

I mean, when else in life does that happen? Besides at your funeral. {Awkward chuckle.}

So, we made it our mission to give our wedding guests a weekend for the record books. We wanted them to feel as welcomed and as loved as humanly possible. “Less about us and more about them”…that was our motto. Because, truth be told, all of that attention on the bride and groom can get exhausting! Even for a spotlight-lovin’ thespian like myself.

Our wedding was a destination wedding of sorts. It took place near my family’s favorite vacation spot in Ocean Grove, NJ, an hour-and-a-half from where I grew up in New York. Nearly every wedding guest road-tripped or flew in from out of town to be there, and since Ocean Grove is a historic town with plenty to enjoy in the summer months, we encouraged our guests to make the most of it! To arrive early and stay late and make a mini-vacation out of it.

So, essentially we used the excuse of our wedding to have a three-day-long party at the beach with our favorite people. Can you blame us?

Since I’ll seize any opportunity I can to share some helpful tips with my dear readers, here they are:

10 Ways to Make your Wedding Guests Feel Welcome

But keep in mind, everyone has their own unique ways of showing love, so for those of your planning your own DIY wedding, use this list as a jumping off point to plot out your own creative ways of giving your guests a weekend to remember.

1. Start the bonding process before the weekend begins!

Okay, so remember how I asked 10 lovely ladies to be my bridesmaids? Well, 10 is a lot, and they were all spread out across the country; however, I was able to keep them all up to speed with my wedding preparations through…The Bridesmaids’ Newsletter!

Not only was this a creative way to express often mundane information (like which bridesmaid dress to purchase), but it allowed us all to bond over the hurdles in my wedding planning process and over the excitement of what was to come!

2. Provide a detailed weekend schedule in advance.

This was probably as much for my own sanity as theirs, but I knew I wanted our wedding guests to be in the “know” on all the fun activities we planned in advance. I determined that it would minimize confusion since we weren’t all staying at the same Bed & Breakfast, while also showing guests that we cared enough to plan some special group activities. More on those activities in a moment….

3. Make arrangements for discounted hotel rooms.

Because so many of our guests were coming in from out of town, we knew expenses could get high between the cost of flights, gas, food, and lodging. So, my Mom and sister made phone calls to various Bed & Breakfasts in Ocean Grove to negotiate for rooms at discounted rates for our wedding guests.

One that was particularly reasonable considering its beach-front location was The Ocean Vista; I ended up staying there myself the night before the wedding along with most of our wedding party.

It has since become a tradition for Mark and I to stay there during our returns to “the Grove” each summer around our anniversary. And the memories come flooding back.

4. Arrange for airport pick-ups and drop-offs.

With so many guests in our wedding party flying in from out of town, we wanted to offer to transport them from Newark Airport to Ocean Grove and back again if they needed to allay the costs and hassle of a rental car. I even documented all of their flight arrival and departure times on a nifty Excel spreadsheet, figured out how many shuttles back and forth needed to be made, and passed it off to my SuperDad who must have driven that 45 minute drive a dozen times that weekend…with the help of my sis and Mom. (What a team!)

5. Provide guests with welcome bags!

Now, I say, welcome bags, but really, in our case, I mean welcome BUCKETS! Perfect for our beachy wedding. And they were all thanks to my Mom! I’m ashamed to say I was initially rather indifferent to the notion of one more DIY project during our already tight time-frame, but my Mom spearheaded this project, and with the help of my sister and college roommate, Becky, they put together some super sweet SWAG for the wedding party and family members. If I recollect, my Mom even made arrangements to have the buckets waiting for their recipients in their room at the B & B! What a magical fairy she was.

6. Plan group activities prior to the wedding.

As I said, we knew this was a once in a lifetime experience, so we were determined to take advantage of our precious time with family and friends. So, that meant that we planned various activities in the days leading up to the wedding.

Two nights before the wedding, all of my bridesmaids arrived in time for a “Hen Party” (a tasteful bachelorette party) thrown by my friends Brittany and Laura. Meanwhile, our families went out for Thai food!

Then, the Friday of our rehearsal, we enjoyed a brunch with the entire wedding party, then hit up the beach for some fun in the sun clouds! (And yes, Mark threw me in the ocean, as any worthy fiancé would do the day before his wedding.)

7. Thank your wedding party with a special gift.

As is tradition, Mark and I wanted to gift our bridesmaids and groomsmen with something special to thank them for standing up for us. For my girls, I gave them all paper parasols, which I knew would be fun to sport in the photos and could double as fun decor after the event. (In fact, you may recognize my parasol up on our living room gallery wall right now!)

And for the guys, Mark gave them each a tie. My Mom and I raided Macy’s one night just before closing, picking out 7 unique ties that matched our wedding colors, and Mark assigned each one to the groomsman it fit best.

9. Keep everyone well fed.

It has always seemed to me that with the extra burst of adrenaline during wedding weekends always comes endless appetites. So, we wanted to make sure our families and wedding party were well fed! We often planned our gatherings around meal times and spelled out the where and when of each meal we provided in the itinerary from #2. My parents even made arrangements for the wedding party to enjoy a pizza dinner together in the evening after our wedding reception. Gotta keep the troops fed!

Becky, Gina, and Anton were the first to arrive from the wedding party…and we kicked it off with a meal at Nagle’s!

10. Plan group activities for AFTER the wedding.

Some couples feel eager to escape away on their honeymoon as soon as they leave the reception in their “getaway car.” But since our ceremony took place in the morning and the reception concluded by mid-afternoon, we decided to reunite with our wedding guests at sunset for an after-party on the beach. We figured, our family and friends have come this far to celebrate with us…we need to soak them up!

We got a permit for a bonfire and tiki torches on the beach and spent the evening in more casual garb, roasting s’mores and playing theatre games and trying to articulate what it felt like to be man and wife. I recollect that evening much like a hazy dream….

And then, almost as if we had ordered it up ourselves, the sky was filled with fireworks. A most fitting finale for the day.

And Mark and I ran off through a sparkler-lit tunnel built by our loved ones, overwhelmed with gratitude for the people God has placed in our lives. I hope they felt our gratitude that weekend…in the itineraries…in the parasols…and in serendipitous fireworks.

More on Welcoming

For another post on making guests feel welcome, but this time, within the walls of your house, check out this post: Hot Drinks Station: Making Guests Feel At Home. I can attest, many months later, this hot drinks station has been a huge hit with company!

I had never heard of hen parties either until I studied abroad in Ireland; they use the term “hen parties” to describe their bachelorette parties (“stag parties” for bachelor parties) and often have a tradition of all dressing the same with matching t-shirts or costumes during a night on the town. Anyway, I liked that there were no negative connotations to the term, at least, not in the states, so every time a friend got engaged after that, I insisted on throwing them a “hen party.” It just brought a new level of class to pre-wedding rituals!

Why thank you, Ingrid! You are so kind to say so. I’d like to think that I’ve inherited some of my parents’ gift for hospitality; they’ve always done such a great job of making company feel at home. And we all got to attempt that on a grander scale during our wedding weekend. Yes, major props to my Mom for dreaming up those Welcome Buckets! Now, I feel silly for ever doubting that we needed to make them! #hindsightistwentytwenty

Unplanned by us, yes…but clearly, planned by the big guy upstairs! 😉 Excited for the one-day when you’ll be planning a wedding of your own, Dusty, and I hope that some of these tips will prove useful! Otherwise, what is this all for, right?! 😉

Fab post. I loved the parasol gift idea, hot drink station and extra touches. I am inspired to put up a sign after reading your post,
in my house. “Happy memories made here”. I need to think about which way to go about it but I know there will be crochet involved. 🙂

That’s such a great sign, isn’t it? And so true to that B & B where we all stayed…and undoubtedly true of your household, Sharon! Oh, and I love that you’re thinking outside of the box and wanting to involve crochet. I can already tell it’s going to be beautiful. And so YOU.

Thanks for your specific feedback; as always, I’m so delighted to read each and every word you pen to me.

Lauren,
What a fond remembrance of all the amazing welcomes you created for your winsome 10-some. Some planning queens might be addressed as Your Excellency. But I think you were truly Your Excel-ness! Love the picture of Lisbeth and me, and especially the one of your beautiful mom.
Love,
Your Dad

My winsome 10-some! I like that! Hmmm…might have to find an excuse for a fourth edition of The Bridesmaid Newsletter, just so I can use that clever title for my girls. Also, I’d be happy to claim the title as Your Excel-ness. Though I think it might be more aptly assigned to you, what with all of your knowledge and understanding of formulas. (And remember that time you helped me figure out how to make special pie charts and fancy graphs? It was for a student survey, I do believe. Dad to the rescue! Stick science experiments…airport shuttles…excel spreadsheets. The list goes on and on!)

All I can say is I am sad I didn’t know you in 2009! You are so stinkin’ cute with all of your planning and to think you did this all pinterest-less! You have an imagination like none other and I absolutely LOVE the tie idea… something that those guys can truly reuse and remember ya’ll every time they wear it! We, too, used parasols for our wedding… bright yellow!! Our colors were red and yellow for our 4th of July wedding at the beach! I’d like to like to propose winsie-twinsies for us!! (to go along with your winsome 10-some!! I’m liking your pops!) 🙂

Man-o-man, that was such a hectic time of life – – I HAD to be organized or else I knew I would never make it. When I get stressed out, I make spreadsheets. It’s a neurosis that can perhaps be considered a strength? At least in wedding planning! Lol. 😉 Hugs back atcha, friend.

What a FUN weekend! I’m sure your guests felt very loved. I love that you had something for them around every turn. You pulled off so many amazing details in just 5 months! Truly incredible! Hope you’re having a great week, Lauren!

It was quite a whirlwind of a timeline, but by God’s grace (and with a lot of helping hands around us), we pulled it off and hopefully managed to bless our guests that weekend. That was our high hope! Thanks for your words of affirmation, Abby. Happy weekend to you, friend.

Thanks for taking me back down the Memory Lane of your wonderful wedding weekend! It was such fun to see your organizational skills in action and being useful to the nth degree! Your hospitality is for real!

The welcome buckets were such fun so thanks for letting me go-for-it! Putting them together with Becky, Lisbeth, and I believe Gina helped too, was an efficient and enjoyable assembly-line in the tent.

I definitely have you and Dad to blame for any hospitality I may possess! So, thank you for always being such a great role model of making guests feel welcome be it in our home or at church or at our wedding. And the Welcome Buckets were such a special touch; I really can’t imagine not having done them. Thanks for spearheading that one with the assistance of some super-helpful bridesmaids! They were a hit!

Wow, Lauren! I loved reading this story and I am not at all surprised. You are blessed with such a generous heart of true hospitality and friendship. How I would have loved to know you back then and been a guest at that epic wedding! Could you do it again please? It just looked so fun…I want to come.

Jessica, your comment warms my heart to no end. Thank you, friend. And you know if we had been buddies then, you would have most DEFINITELY gotten one of my smudgy invitations. The fun factor at our wedding would have gone through the ROOF to have you in attendance. THAT I know.

Hmmm…maybe I can photoshop you and your family into my photos so we can play pretend…. 😉

Beautiful …..loved the awesome idea you had put to the entire wedding….i have my wedding on 22nd dec 2013 and i love my friends so much….now i have also got some ideas from you to make my wedding weekend special for friends….:) 🙂 🙂

I LOVE this post. It’s a gift to remember and relish this special event. I’m diggin’ the photo of me and Popsie too! One of my favorite things was the bridesmaids newsletter…it really bonded us to you, your wedding planning experience, and to each other! And I love how you truly made the whole weekend more about others than yourselves…what a blessing and inspiration you are to me.

So glad you enjoyed it, Jamie! And how exciting that you’re in the midsts of planning your own beach wedding. I’m actually planning to finish up my series on our DIY wedding this spring, so hopefully some of my posts on our ceremony and reception can be an inspiration to you, as well! (Stay tuned…smile.)

To answer your question about the welcome buckets, I am 90% certain we got the big beach pails at The Christmas Tree Shop. Not sure if they have one of those near where you live, but if not, I’d check dollar stores, party supply stores, or even online! You might find some great deals there.

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I’m a New York gal putting down new roots in Orlando, Florida with my hubby and our sailboat. My heart skips a beat for all things creative, be it crafting, upcycling, sewing, journaling…especially blogging. If I can make you smile or ignite in you a spark of inspiration, then my job is done here. Won’t you grab a cup of chai, a comfy blanket, and stay a while? {read more...}

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